The InnovateHER Lab Podcast

Hello, and welcome to the Innovator Lab Podcast where we focus on women's professional advancement and personal well-being. I'm Adrienne Farrell, and today our guest joining us is Ebi Firdig. Ebi has been making yoga and mindfulness doable for people of all backgrounds for over 20 years. She is a certified health and life coach for women in midlife, and she owns Unfold, an online movement and coaching business. Welcome, Ebi.

Thanks, Adrienne. I'm so glad to be here with you today.

Yeah. Thank you. It's great to do this with you. I would love to hear a little bit more about who you are and what you do. I know I gave a very brief intro, but I would love to just hear more about you.

Yeah. Thanks. Well, I I live in Portland, Oregon and have been making yoga and mindfulness doable in the community. I work in low income health and housing environments. So I I love figuring out how to really make these, these practices accessible to people.

And that really translates across all populations because, there are a lot of us who find yoga and mindfulness not that not that accessible. So, I've really enjoyed doing that for my career. I've been doing it for a very long time, over 20 years. And more recently, moving into health and life coaching, which I find super empowering. I've gone through a lot of life changes recently.

I got divorced. I came out as gay. I became a an empty nester. And so a lot of that's coming at, at at this mid lifetime. I'm also 54.

And I've just found a lot of tools that have made a real difference in personal empowerment. So I'm super energized and motivated about how to kind of work in a different way with women.

I love that. That sounds like such a natural transition from helping people of all walks of life with movement to then focusing more on women and midlife and and still on the helping aspect, but more specifically people who are in a similar demographic and experience of of what you're going through.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of women at middle in midlife have different different mobility issues, whether it's shoulders or joints or back trouble that make can make movement different than what it was before. I have a background in in helping people with lots of different challenges and now translating that into empowerment work for mid women in midlife.

I love that. And, you know, it's so interesting because I know we've talked about it before, but I feel like midlife is something as a woman that you don't hear a lot about until you get there. And then you're like, oh, wow. This is actually can be a really challenging time with perimenopause and menopause and all the different transitions, aging parents, your body changing, your nutrition needs changing, your exercise needs changing. We we've talked a lot about that.

I've learned so much from you, which is really helpful. I think there's such a need for women to have these conversations and be aware of this information. So I'm so glad that you do what you do, and I definitely wanna hear more about that. I know you're working on a few projects as well. I'm curious with both your yoga and movement and now with coaching, what would you say are 1 to 2 things that have helped you be successful in your career?

I think that the most important thing has been having mentors slash a squad. I guess I put that into 2 different to 2 different categories because we need people I'm an yeah. I'm a, an entrepreneur. I work for myself, have I have for the last 20 years. And for that, we need to have people around us.

We need to create our own structure of support. And when I say a squad, I think about peers. Peers of all different kinds. Peers people in my in my industry and peers who are people outside my industry. So being in groups of peers.

But also having mentors of people who are ahead of me, so to speak, who have skills that are ahead of mine that I can look to for best practices and for advice. So even though I help people within my life coaching, I also need to have people who are ahead of me.

Definitely. I I really resonate that and appreciate both those things now, I think, more than ever. And I love your point about mentorship because it's true. Your mentor probably has a mentor, and their mentor probably has a mentor because, you know, we all have different strengths and different areas of expertise, and we're all somewhere along the spectrum of where we are with our understanding of that subject. So just like you said, you know, you have a mentor who's helping you, and then you can also help people move forward up to where you are.

You know? And I I think that's such the great thing about mentorship is that we can always help further other people along the line. I'd really appreciate what you said. I was also curious. What are 1 to 2 things that have helped you succeed in your life overall?

Well, definitely having practices. I think that's the first thing I think about is is whether they're kinda might you consider them spiritual practices, mindfulness practices, physical practices that feel like they are structure that I can lean on. So the yoga world, that ended up working for me in terms of intersecting all of these, needs. Whether that's, again, like, making sense of the spiritual, making sense of the nervous system, making sense of our brains, making sense of our bodies. That has helped me in life.

And when things get hard, I know that I can rely on my practices to help things make sense. Whether that's regulating my nervous system, remembering what's important, remembering my values, that is key. And I guess I if I said one more thing, it would be remembering the one thing that connection is the main thing that's important. That is my main value and focus is that knowing that I am connected. I'm connected to the people that I love.

I'm connected to all people. I'm connected to nature, to powers greater than myself. And so that, ultimately, is what's important to me. And so regardless of what happens, me knowing that and remembering that and orienting back to that always helps me in life regardless of what the challenge is.

That's wonderful. That sounds like such an important mindset to have. Sometimes, you know, people can feel isolated or disconnected and remembering, like you said, that you're connected to these people and community and nature and everything feels to me when I hear it very grounding. And I love that you mentioned also the different practices because having, you know, a practice to regulate your nervous system can be so important to get yourself out of fight or flight. And you might be in a job that activates your fight and flight.

You might be in a relationship. You know, there's a lot of reasons and situations that our nervous system gets activated. Right? Yeah. So I you know, it's so important that we that we have these tools that we can go to.

And I think sometimes people have innate, temperaments that maybe they're naturally calm, so they may not need to work on that as much. And then other people might be sort of naturally a bit nervous, and they could really benefit from grounding exercises and structures and practices that help calm them and soothe them. So that's really lovely. I'd love to talk more about that down the road. It's so important.

For sure. For sure. That other thing when you're saying, you know, connection versus disconnection just reminded me that, that I work in in drug and alcohol treatment centers as well, offering these yoga tools. And, gabor, Gabor Mate, he is, like, one of the kind of premier and the leaders in educators in addiction treatment. And he says that addiction, the definition of addiction is disconnection.

So if we think about that and how the opioid epidemic affects so many parts of our lives and and our country, and if we think about that what people are seeking is connection and reducing suffering of disconnection, and that we all experience that. I think it's it's it's just helpful to remember that that we that we can all experience that in the course of our day, fear of of disconnection, but just remembering that we are connected, and we can find ways to prove that to ourselves.

Absolutely. And it you know, it's interesting. It seems like now more than ever, there are these online communities where people are connecting. And I know with the Innovator Lab, that's a huge part of what what I have been working on is a place where people can connect and have relationships and have support, have resources. I know that everyone in there at the moment has such unique skills and backgrounds and areas of expertise.

So I find it so multipurposeful, but bringing it back to just that fundamental feeling of connection. It's amazing that, you know, that's a place where we can really find that too. I'm just sort of thinking out loud, but I know I've found that in some of the the online communities that I'm part of.

Yeah. It's very hopeful that that connection that you offer that you're creating a container for with InnovatorLab. It's so hopeful. The idea that we can be there for one another, whether that squad aspect or that mentorship and to see the innovation and to help one another. It's very hopeful.

Oh, I like that. I need to put that as our, like, logo. It's very hopeful. Innovator logo. Exactly.

It's I know being a relatively new mother, my daughter will be 3 at the end of the year. It it has been a bit isolating. You know? When you have a timely toddler, you're not going out at night. You're not socializing as much as before.

And so I think these opportunities give us a way to connect where maybe we can't in our local communities due to having toddlers or different things, or maybe those opportunities just aren't there. Hopefully, the innovator lab provides a lot of value as well as all the other communities that are that are out there. Okay. So we have a couple more minutes. I would love to know what's next for you.

What are you working on? What are you excited about? And what's what's coming? I

am creating a new program called Fit Over 40, and I'm evolving that into a group coaching program. And that program educates women in midlife about some of the most critical things to know about how fitness, wellness, energy management change in midlife, because we have this decrease in estrogen. And so we so it's it's coaching about how we make changes so that we can feel better so that we can do whatever the heck it is that we want to do, whether that's starting a new business, changing their job, leaving their job, leaving a relationship, finding a new relationship, so they can navigate transition with competence.

That's so important. I really appreciate too that you talk about the educational component, the accountability component so that women can feel their best and be at their best, and then have more freedom to do what they really wanna do. I think we all should be so lucky. Right? Right.

Yeah. And certainly having someone coach you and guide you can make a world of difference. I know we've talked a lot about protein, and I've significantly increased my protein just since talking to you about it. And that I I feel so much better. So even just having that that little birdie in your ear sharing all this good information and offering support is really helpful.

Well, that sounds exciting. I look forward to seeing that come to life and hearing more about it. I think you mentioned you might be doing an info session down the road for people if they're interested.

Yes. I will be doing a couple info sessions in December that people can for them at unfoldportland.com. It'll be right on the on the front page. It should be easy to navigate to, unfoldportland.com.

And if there's any listeners that wanna reach out to you directly, where can they find you in addition to Unfold?

Yes. You can find me at LinkedIn. I'm I'm there as EB Furdig. So it's my initials, EB Fertig, and I also have some good resources there, including a newsletter that is called fitness over 40 differs.

Great. Okay. Perfect. So EB Fertig on LinkedIn. And last but not least, what is one book that has changed your life, whether personally, professionally, but one book that has really made an impact on you?

Great question. The first thing that comes to mind is The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal. Kelly McGonigal is a, a neuroscience researcher at Stanford University and talks about how the best ways to use willpower are, through a lens of compassion. So So it's about behavior change, acknowledging that it's challenging, and understanding the science behind behavior change and that we need to be kind to ourselves as we go. So she works also in the, in the Center For Compassion Studies at Stanford University.

So that's a huge one. I love it, that book. Would highly recommend.

That sounds great. I actually haven't heard of that one before, so I'm going to add it to my list. Thank you so much. Well, it has been just wonderful talking with you. I know that you are in the Innovator Lab, and if anyone is interested in joining us there, it's a free online space on Slack, and this is what we like to do, talk about important things for women professionally and in terms of their personal well-being.

So we'd love to have you join. And thank you again, Evie, so much. I know we're gonna have you back on down the road to check-in and see how things are going. Until then, keep up the good work. You're doing a great job, and thanks so much for being on the podcast.

Thank you, Adrienne, and thanks for bringing this information to people through this podcast. It's really important.